Cisco Tidal Enterprise Scheduler 6.2 Tutorial Guide for Microsoft Windows

Using Scheduler Calendars

---

Overview

In the previous exercise, you created an unscheduled job. In this chapter you will create a scheduled job by creating a calendar, and adding it to the job. Scheduled jobs run on a regular basis according to the dates in their calendar. Some schedules are simple with jobs running every day from Monday through Friday, or on the first day of every month. Others are more involved, with jobs running on irregular accounting periods, holidays or fiscal period offsets.

Enteprise Scheduler uses calendars to define the set of dates on which jobs run. Enteprise Scheduler contains five different methods for creating calendars, depending on the period in which you need your job to repeat. For example, you may need your job to run as needed on a, daily, weekly or monthly basis. Each method addresses a particular period.

This chapter describes how to build four calendars:

• first wkdy – A list calendar (as needed) representing the first workday of each week.
• work day – A daily calendar representing Monday through Friday.
• Fiscal Week End – A calendar to use when your work week ends on a Thursday.
• Fiscal Quarter End – A calendar for scheduling on the last business day of a quarter

You will then schedule a job using the work day calendar, and confirm that it is scheduled properly.

Note To complete the exercises in this tutorial, you need to:

• Install Enteprise Scheduler in the default directory Scheduler (or the examples in this tutorial will not work properly)
• Select the Super User option in your User definition
• Configure a default agent
• Create and have available the work day calendar

Building the First Workday Calendar

In this exercise, you will build a list calendar called first wkdy which refers to the first workday in every week. In the List Calendar dialog, you choose each day that the job is to be scheduled.

To build a List calendar:

1. From the Navigator pane, select Definitions>Calendars to display the Calendars pane.

2. Click the Add button on the Scheduler toolbar or right-click a calendar and select Add Calendar>List from the context menu to display the List Calendar Definition dialog.

3. In the Calendar Name field, type first wkdy .

4. In the calendar view, double-click the dates that represent Monday of each week for the current month.

Figure 4-1 Entered Dates in the Detail Tab of the List Calendar

All selected dates appear under the Selected Dates section to the right of the calendar.

Note To add scheduling dates to other months, use the inner right arrow buttons. To add scheduling dates to other years, use the outer right arrow buttons.

5. Click OK after you have completed your selections.

Figure 4-2 Calendars View Showing First Wkdy

Congratulations, you just created your first list calendar!
You can create a calendar for any dates you specify. This calendar can be associated with a job from within the Job Definition dialog, but will not be used in any future tutorial exercises.

Building the Work Day Calendar

Now you will create the work day daily calendar to use for scheduling a job. The work day daily calendar schedules your job to run on each weekday.

To build a Work Day calendar:

1. From the Navigator pane, select Definitions>Calendars to display the Calendars pane.

2. Click the Add button on the Enterprise Scheduler toolbar or right-click a calendar and select Add Calendar>Daily from the context menu to display the List Calendar Definition dialog.

3. In the Calendar Name field, type Work Day .

Notice the Public option in the lower left corner of the dialog. Selecting this option makes the calendar available to all Enteprise Scheduler users.

We will be accepting the defaults in the Details tab. The defaults automatically set the calendar to generate dates for Monday through Friday of each week.

4. Click the Forecast tab to generate the calendar.

This tab displays all the dates calculated from the Details tab. The Forecast tab is viewed the same way as in the List Calendar dialog, when the calendar first wkday was entered. You can add individual dates from this tab by double-clicking in the calendar view on the dates you want to change. You can delete dates by selecting the date in Selected Dates and either right-clicking the date to select Delete or clicking the Delete button. The forecast displays a four-year time window, but the calendar extends indefinitely.

Note This step can take from a few seconds to a minute, depending on your system’s configuration.

5. Click OK .

The Calendars view displays the two calendars you created. By default, the rows of the display are sorted alphabetically according to calendar name (the Name column). You can also sort by other columns by clicking the column name. For example, if you click the Owner name at the top of the Owner column, calendars are grouped by their creator. If you click the Modified label at the top of the Modified column, your newest calendars are grouped together

Building the Fiscal Week End Calendar

We will create the Fiscal Week End calendar to use for scheduling a job to run when your fiscal week ends on Thursday evening. If Thursday is a holiday, the job will execute on Wednesday evening, through the use of a condition definition.

To build a Fiscal Week End calendar:

1. From the Activities menu, select the System Configuration option.

2. In the Week Begins list, select Friday . This sets your fiscal week to start on Friday and end on Thursday.

3. Click OK .

4. Click OK when the Warning dialog displays. This warning displays whenever you change the calendar week starting day.

Note The Recalculate Calendars option, available from the Calendars pane context menu, will change all calendars to begin on the new Week Begins day. If you do not recalculate calendars, existing calendars are not changed; only those calendars created selecting the new Week Begins day are affected.

5. From the Navigator pane, select Definitions>Calendars to display the Calendars pane.

6. Click the Add button on the Enterprise Scheduler toolbar or right-click a calendar and select Add Calendar>Subset from the context menu to display the Calendar Subset Definition dialog.

7. In the Calendar Name field, enter Fiscal Week End .

8. In the Occurrence list, select Every .

9. In the Calendar list, select Friday .

10. In the Time Frame list, select Week .

11. (Optional) Multiple fiscal calendars can be defined for Enteprise Scheduler. You can choose to base a calendar definition on a fiscal year, rather than a standard January- through-December calendar year.

Making no selection in the Based on Fiscal list results in the use of a standard calendar. For this exercise, leave the field empty.

12. Now, we need to set a condition to let Enteprise Scheduler know what to do if a holiday occurs on Thursday. Click the Conditions tab.

13. Click Add to display the Condition dialog.

14. From the If conflicts with calendar list, select the Holidays calendar.

15. From the Take action list, select Previous Calendar .

16. The Calendar field defines which calendar to use and how many days in the past to go. The default is 0 days. Select a value of 1 , and in the adjacent list, select Workdays .

17. Click OK .

The condition now displays in the Conditions view.

Now if a holiday falls on Friday of the Fiscal Week End , Enteprise Scheduler will schedule the Fiscal Week End calendar for Wednesday.

18. Click the Forecast tab to verify the dates Enteprise Scheduler has set.

19. Click OK . The Fiscal Week End calendar now appears in the Calendars view.

Alternate Method of Creating a Calendar

In most cases, there is more than one way to define a calendar such as our Fiscal Week End . The following is an example of another way to create the Fiscal Week End calendar. We will call this calendar Fiscal Week Ending , so that the results of both exercises will be visible.

To create a calendar:

1. From the Navigator pane, select Definitions>Calendars to display the Calendars pane.

2. Click the Add button on the Enterprise Scheduler toolbar or right-click a calendar and select Add Calendar>Weekly from the context menu to display the Weekly Calendar Definition dialog.

3. In the Calendar Name field, enter Fiscal Week Ending .

4. Click the Details tab. In the Include the following days section, de-select Monday , Tuesday , Wednesday and Thursday options.

5. Click the Conditions tab, and then click Add .

6. In the If conflicts with calendar list, select the Holidays US calendar.

7. In the Take action list, select Previous Calendar .

8. The Calendar field defines which calendar to use and how many days in the past to go. The default is 0 days. Select a value of 1 , and in the adjacent list, select Workdays .

9. Click OK .

10. Click Forecast to verify the dates that Enteprise Scheduler has chosen.

11. Click OK in the Weekly Calendar Definition dialog.

Now, both the Fiscal Week End and the Fiscal Week Ending calendars are visible in the Calendars view.

Building the Quarter End Calendars

We will create the Fiscal Quarter End and Calendar Quarter End calendars to use for scheduling jobs to run when your fiscal quarter ends on the last work day of the quarter. If the quarter ends on a holiday, the calendar should execute on the previous work day. For this exercise, we will consider the fiscal year to run from November to October.

Fiscal Quarter End

We first have to define a fiscal calendar period, to be used in documenting the Fiscal Quarter End calendar. Many companies run production from more than one fiscal calendar period.

To define a Fiscal calendar period:

1. From the Navigator pane, select Definitions>Fiscal Calendars to display the Fiscal Calendars pane.

2. Click the Add button on the Enterprise Scheduler toolbar or right-click a calendar and select Add Fiscal Calendar from the context menu to display the Fiscal Calendar Definition dialog.

Figure 4-3 Fiscal Calendar Definition Dialog

 

 

3. In the Fiscal Calendar Name field, enter Corporate Fiscal Year .

4. In the Starting Month list, select November . Keep the default values for the remaining text fields.

5. Click OK .

6. From the Navigator pane, select Definitions>Calendars to display the Calendars pane.

7. Click the Add button on the Enterprise Scheduler toolbar or right-click a calendar and select Add Calendar>Subset from the context menu to display the Calendar Subset Definition dialog.

Figure 4-4 Calendar Subset Definition Dialog

 

 

8. In the Calendar Name field, enter Fiscal Quarter End .

9. If not already selected, click the Details tab.

10. From the Occurrence list, select Last .

11. From the Calendar list, select Workdays US .

12. From the Time Frame list, select Quarter .

13. In the Based on Fiscal list, select Corporate Fiscal Year . Leave the Adjust by ... days field at 0 .

14. We have completed the definition for the Fiscal Quarter End calendar. Click the Forecast tab to verify the dates that will be selected for production execution and then click OK .

The calendar definitions are ready to be used in production.

Scheduling the Report Job with a Calendar

Now, return to the Report job and schedule it using the work day calendar.

To schedule the Report job using the word day calendar:

1. From the Navigator pane, select Definitions>Jobs to display the Jobs pane.

2. Right-click the Report job and select Edit Job/Group from the context menu to display the Job Definition dialog.

3. Click the Schedule tab on the Job Definition dialog.

4. In the Calendar Name list, select Work Day .

5. To view the dates in the calendar, click the Forecast button and then click OK .

Figure 4-5 Calendar Forecast Dialog

6. Click OK again on the Job Definition dialog to display the Effective Date dialog.

Figure 4-6 Effective Date Dialog

The Effective Date dialog displays asking you when the job should enter the production schedule. The dates represent the current span of the production schedule.

7. Click OK to accept the default (today).

Another occurrence of the Report job enters the production schedule.

8. From the Navigator pane, select Operations>Job Activity to display the Job Activity pane.

The job runs according to the work day calendar. It will run today (unless you are running this tutorial on a weekend). Your window may appear slightly different.

You will also see the previous occurrence of the Report job that was added to the schedule manually in the previous chapter. The job occurrence has been renamed Report(2) to reflect the first occurrence of the same job (Report) that ran earlier.